Worrying thing is we lost the collission when everyone reckons we have the best pack in SL

One of the best packs, not the best. Anyway regardless of personel some times players don't play to theri potential on other players do.

When you get out played or out thought you have to take it on the chin and come again.

Looked a long way off one of the best packs last night

I'm sure Leeds looked a long way off the best team in the comp when losing to Cas and Wakey, does not mean they are not the best team.

Sometimes teams get beat, you have to accept it and move on.

True, however I'd be less worried if we'd just won the comp 3 seasons in a row

Excellent post, absolutely spot on

Wigan were clinical on our line. And to be honest, that's all we really saw of them with ball in hand. They rarely had to carry the ball out of their own half. I'd guess about 75% of the time they had possession in their own half they would receive a penalty to get them out of it.

When you're constantly defending on your own line, you're going to leak points, but 48 points shows they're very clinical at breaking the line. We were constantly sucked in on the wings, and Sam Tomkins was a class act.

Interesting though, in the last 10 mins when it was us receiving the penalties to piggy back us out of our half, we kept scoring. We were also clinical on their line. We just never got there because we were too busy defending on ours! Wigan's try line defence was no better than ours. Every time we got near it, we either scored or nearly scored.

The difference between these two teams was that the ball spent most of the time in our half, whether it was us defending or us in possession. When it was in there's with us in possession, we scored or nearly scored. When it was in there's with them in possession, they more times than not got a penalty.

The lesson: don't give away so many penalties against a team as clinical as Wigan and expect to not get stuffed!

thats more like it

They were on the front foot all night and we were backpedalling. the penalties were as a result of us trying to slow them down when we weren't in a position to

referees dont give away penalties or hold down, he was awful for both sides.. but we need to blame someone huh

lets start with Radford for not being fit enough to get out of the tackles quick enough, or the whole team for not being able to control Wigans play the ball speed which was our undoing

Halibut is always awful.

The disappointing thing is that we still don't seem to be smart enough to play to the referee. Once it becomes clear that he's going to penalise something, why keep on doing it? That's just plain stupid IMO.

Absolutely 100% spot on.

Exactly.

The inconsistency in refereeing is appalling. But it can't be used as an excuse. You've got to be smart enough to realise at the start of the game how a referee is going to control the game and play accordingly. It seems our players just went with the game plan of "slow the play the ball down at all costs" and it killed us. It's just dumb. What's worse? Giving a quick PTB away where they might pinch 10 easy yards, or giving a penalty away where they'll get about 30 free yards and a restarted set? The penalties killed the game for us. It's really disappointing because we were excellent near their line.

Our discipline hasn't been a big issue this season. Last night we did struggle in the collision and therefore found it very difficult to be tidy around the rucks. That said the difference in time taken in the rucks was not as different for the two teams as the penalty count would make out. The referee did not punish Wigan as heavily as Hull for the same offences.

When we were near their line, we were just as clinical as them. If we'd have not given as many penalties away, we'd have been in the game. If the penalty count was the other way, we'd have probably stuffed them. The difference was our discipline was awful and theirs wasn't. We are both good teams with ball in hand, that's why there were a lot of tries.

Err... yes they do.

I thought the difference was they were more "dominating" in the tackle, getting more defenders in than us. It just made it easier for the french idiot to penalise us I think as we looked slower

Glad to see he clamped down on your spoiling tactics

At least watching the rovers game on SKY+ this morning cheered me up

They were smarter (much smarter) in the ruck than us. At times they seemed to take as long as us to peel away, but they worked it better. We were just obvious at times. I thought it was ridiculous how dumb we were in the ruck at times. I remember seeing Lauaki and Radford in a tackle, and Lauaki blatantly holding down thinking to myself "we were lucky to get away with that" and then Radford pushing him straight back down as Lauaki released. It was just dumb.

Quote ="Jake the Peg"At least watching the rovers game on SKY+ this morning cheered me up '" It would do mate, because you have a small mentality. The fact you got beat last night doesn't cheer me up one bit for the simple reason we lost. Anyway, agars mincing about the delaying tactics news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 565783.stm

Quote ="Jake the Peg"At least watching the rovers game on SKY+ this morning cheered me up '" It would do mate, because you have a small mentality. The fact you got beat last night doesn't cheer me up one bit for the simple reason we lost. Anyway, agars mincing about the delaying tactics news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 565783.stm

This coming from the person with "You'll never win at Wembley" in their avatar

That's a laugh coming from your good self ex councillor

Ex councillor?